Ethnostate is not a slur, it's an accurate description of a country that itself passed the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.

(A basic law in Israel is roughly like a constitutional amendment in the US.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law%3A_Israel_as_the_Nat...

Ethnostate is an ambiguous word. Does it mean ethnically homogenous? Israel is certainly not that. Does it mean, essentially, a nation-state whose "national group" is an ethnicity? Israel is that - but so is much of Europe and some parts of Asia.

How many of those have declared themselves to be the Nation-State of the X people? (at least after the 1940s)

Many former Soviet and former Yugoslavia nations did this.

I ran the question by AI, and it seems to think that somewhere between 30-50 since WWII have done so explicitly.

Seems fair to call those ethnostates as well.

Edit: I asked ChatGPT "How many nations have declared themselves to be the Nation-State of a people?" earlier and got the same answer as you. I asked again just now and got "Israel is the only nation in the world that has legally declared itself the “Nation‑State of the Jewish People.”" [I didn't specify Jewish]

Can't rely on AI.

You should consider that AI is often wrong and stop using it as a source of truth.

I think it might be a slur on, say, reddit, but isn’t most of the world a bunch of ethnostates? Isn’t that kinda one of the things that makes the US stand out, is that it’s explicitly not one? I’m asking this unironically, but I guess I thought e.g. Ireland was pretty homogenous, as is Japan, Ethiopia, Cuba, Peru, and Denmark. (Maybe some of those examples aren’t perfect but you get my point I hope)

> I’m asking this unironically, but I guess I thought e.g. Ireland was pretty homogenous

In the 2022 census, only 76.5% of people in Ireland were ethnically Irish. Over 20% of the population are foreign-born, with the most common countries of foreign birth being Poland, the UK, India, Romania and Lithuania.

So Ireland is far less homogeneous than you perceive it to be.

But the real issue here isn’t how diverse the state’s population is in practice, it is how the state defines itself in its own founding documents (such as the constitution) - as a state for all its citizens, or as a state for a people (ethnos) which is only a subset of the state’s citizens? Israel is (2) but essentially all Western nations nowadays are (1).

Even though the French and German constitutions still express the idea of a “national people” for whom the state exists, they consider anyone who is naturalised as a citizen as joining that people (“ethnos”). By contrast, a non-Jew can immigrate to Israel and become an Israeli citizen-but the state will still not consider them a member of the people for whom the state exists-only conversion to Judaism does that, and only if their conversion is accepted as valid by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate-non-Orthodox conversions will not be accepted, but they sometimes even reject conversions by overseas Orthodox Rabbis whom they don’t consider “rigorous” enough.

So Israel is actually unique in this regard - no Western nation makes becoming “not just a citizen of the state, but a member of the people for whom it exists” contingent on religious conversion. If you want a parallel, you’d have to look at the Islamic world, where non-Muslims are sometimes (not always) permitted citizenship, but are denied membership in the category of “nation for whose sake the state exists”

>In the 2022 census, only 76.5% of people in Ireland were ethnically Irish. Over 20% of the population are foreign-born, with the most common countries of foreign birth being Poland, the UK, India, Romania and Lithuania.

And there is alot of tension right now because of that. Not just in Ireland, but much of the West.

But really, why do you think states exist if not to protect the interests of its underlying culture/ethnicty/group. If not, why Canada refuse to join USA as a 51st state? From an economic perspective it would be logical, fron a political perspective they would have decisive power due to their relative population. What is the fundamental reasoning behind the refusal to join?

> If not, why Canada refuse to join USA as a 51st state?

Trump’s idea of Canada as a US state is constitutionally ludicrous, because it ignores the fact that Canada is already a federation of provinces - which are essentially equivalent to states, choosing a different name was fundamentally a branding exercise not a difference of substance-indeed, when Britain’s colonies in Australia federated, they decided to be called “states” not “provinces”, because their greater physical distance from the US made them feel less of a need to distinguish themselves from the US. So Canada as a 51st state would create the globally near-unprecedented scenario of a federation within a federation, states within a state. [0] Why would anyone wish to experience such a constitutional novelty?

If you were serious about merging the US and Canada, a more sensible way to do it would be to admit Canada’s provinces as US states. But the problem with that proposal, is not only do most Canadians not want that, I doubt most Americans would either. Sure, Republicans might seem open to the idea as long as it remains a Trump thought bubble with zero chance of ever being implemented - but actually adding Canada’s provinces as US states would fundamentally upset the balance between Republicans and Democrats in the US, most of Canada’s provinces would act like blue states in the US-even many conservatives in Canada are closer to conservative Democrats than liberal Republicans-and would probably shift US politics as a whole in a more “progressive” direction. I think if it actually started to seem like a realistic prospect, Republicans would turn against it out of their own political self-interest and block it.

I think the most realistic scenario in the long-run, is a sort of “exchange” in which Canada loses some provinces to the US (most likely Alberta) but then progressive-leaning areas of the US secede to join Canada. North America might end up reorganised along ideological lines, “Blue-America+Canada” vs “Red-America+Alberta”. Not happening any time soon, but over a century or two I don’t think the possibility can be ruled out.

[0] not totally unprecedented, in that Soviet-era Russia was a federation within the larger federation of the USSR-but the Soviet Union’s authoritarian political system made its federalism more nominal than real, nobody knows how a federation-within-a-federation would work in practice in combination with a genuinely democratic political system

Israel is not at all unique in this regard. Your (1) is essentially limited to Western Europe ("civic" nation-states) and non-nation-states.

Israel really is unique among Western nations. Can you point to a Western nation where there is a constitutional distinction between "citizens" and "the nation for whom the state exists", such that you can belong to the former without belonging to the later?

And it isn't "essentially limited to Western Europe". The same is true of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand – naturalisation as a citizen automatically makes you an official member of the "nation for whom the state exists". I believe it is true for most or all Latin American nations as well.

Now, Israel is not unique globally speaking – I think Malaysia's bumiputera status is a rather close parallel. But I doubt that's a comparison most Zionists are keen to draw attention to.

> "civic" nation-states) and non-nation-states

If you are going to argue that "Germany is a civic nation state, the US is a non-nation-state", that is a false and arbitrary distinction. Because American nationalism is an entirely real thing – but in its mainstream contemporary manifestation it is civic nationalist, not ethnic nationalist, just like how mainstream contemporary German nationalism is civic nationalist not ethnic nationalist. Now, historically America was arguably racial nationalist – America was a nation, not necessarily for any particular White ethnicity, but for White people [0] – but it has evolved from racial nationalism into civic nationalism

[0] The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited US citizenship by naturalization to "free white persons". The Naturalization Act of 1870 made people of African descent eligible for citizenship by naturalization, but people who were categorised as neither "white" nor "African" remained ineligible for citizenship by naturalisation until the The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (the McCarran-Walter Act) removed all racial restrictions on naturalisation. So US nationality law arguably was explicitly racially nationalist from 1790 to 1870, and remained so in a somewhat watered down sense from 1870 to 1952.

Yes, I hold the "America is not a nation-state" perspective. I generally like the analysis by Bret Devereaux on this topic (https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-...), but if that's not convincing I don't have anything to argue this point on beyond my own experiences that "American" is a "civic group" but not a "national group". So, we'll just have to agree to disagree there.

It doesn't really take away from my main point. Yes, Western Europe and pretty much all New World countries are "civic" oriented. No Western state, Israel included I am pretty sure, has in their constitution or equivalent that a subset of citizens has legal rights other citizens do not. The closest I can think of to what you asked for is actually the Baltics - not a citizen-subgroup distinction, but where there is a complex situation due to not having granted most non-ethnic residents at the time of independence automatic citizenship. Otherwise, we are primarily talking about symbolism in the legal documents and cultural norms in the population. Japan is pretty clearly an ethnic nation-state. Eastern European states were generally ethnic nation-states at the time of independence, but some are moving closer to civic nation-states now.

> Yes, I hold the "America is not a nation-state" perspective. I generally like the analysis by Bret Devereaux on this topic (https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-...), but if that's not convincing I don't have anything to argue this point on beyond my own experiences that "American" is a "civic group" but not a "national group". So, we'll just have to agree to disagree there.

But that's defining the word "nation" in a sense which deliberately skews it towards "ethnic nationalism" and away from "civic nationalism". If you are going to insist on defining it in that narrow way, then arguably France and Germany aren't "nation states" any more either, even though they used to be.

And while contemporary mainstream American self-definition is predominantly civic, 19th century Americans commonly viewed their nation in racial terms, as a state for the white race – so, if France and Germany have become "non-nation states" by transforming ethnic nationalism into civic nationalism, then in fundamentally the same way, America has become a "non-nation state" by transforming racial nationalism into civic nationalism

> No Western state, Israel included I am pretty sure, has in their constitution or equivalent that a subset of citizens has legal rights other citizens do not

Israel's constitution insists that all citizens are formally equal in the rights of citizenship, but at the same time officially relegates non-Jewish citizens to the symbolic status of "second class citizens" – what Western state has a constitution that does that? And, the reality on the ground is – there are complaints of real discrimination in practice against non-Jewish citizens of Israel, and unless you are going to argue that none of those complaints are valid, the idea that official symbolic discrimination in the constitution has no causal role to play in sustaining practical discrimination on the ground is rather implausible

> The closest I can think of to what you asked for is actually the Baltics - not a citizen-subgroup distinction, but where there is a complex situation due to not having granted most non-ethnic residents at the time of independence automatic citizenship

The Baltics do not have any legally recognised category of "citizens of the state but not members of the nation for whom it exists"; Israel does. The complex issue of long-term residents who lack citizenship you point to is real, but it isn't the same thing as what Israel does

> Japan is pretty clearly an ethnic nation-state

De jure, it isn't. Japanese law and court decisions are very clear: naturalised Japanese citizens are officially just as Japanese as anyone else. Membership in Japan's historical ethnic supermajority (the Yamato people) has no formal constitutional significance

Now, no denying the social reality that there is a lot of informal discrimination against non-Yamato Japanese citizens. But that social reality has no constitutional basis.

So you are comparing a state which officially declares in its constitution that some of its citizens are "not members of the nation for whom it exists", to a state whose constitution and laws never officially say that, even though it arguably remains a widespread informal belief/attitude amongst its population. Both de jure and de facto "second class citizenship" are bad, but there is an important sense in which the former is a lot worse

I do not use it as a slur, nor do I think Israel is an exception in this regard - China, Japan, Korea, Ukraine, Poland, Sudan, Finland, Egypt, are all effectively ethno-states. They may host a few minorities, but they are primarily vessels for the self-determination and preservation of their nations.

If you're not an ethno-nationalist, would you be okay with Jews becoming a minority in Israel? The usual retort is that you can't because all your neighbors hate you - but there's no requirement immigrants come from neighbor countries, as immigration to England, Germany, and France shows.

I think that's a valid question.

The answer is - no, I wouldn't want Jews being a minority in Israel; I think Jews need at least one homeland where they are a majority, especially given how Jews have been treated throughout history. But also, it's complicated, and really depends on how we get there.

France, US, England etc allow immigration. But all of them put caps and conditions on immigration. All of them also have fierce internal debates around the topic of immigration, because of the fear of a fundamental change in the character of the country.

And indeed, most "nations" have their own homeland. That's exactly what happened in the 19th and 20th century - a new nationalism was taking hold in the world, and many nations created a national homeland - hence the creation of so many countries in the 20th century.

The Zionist movement started because early Jewish leaders saw this phenomenon gaining traction, and understood that as these national identities were created and states started being created for them, many wouldn't consider Jews part of their "nationality", therefore Jews also needed a national homeland. This was, in retrospect, the exactly correct analysis, given the pogroms that happened in the 19th century and given the Holocaust.

Despite so many people claiming otherwise, there's not much different about Israel than many other European nations.